


last ones out

by epilogues



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles (Homestuck), F/F, Reconciliation, Scourge Sisters, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23523487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: Terezi and (Vriska) meet somewhere in the void.
Relationships: Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Ladystuck Art/Fic Exchange 2020





	last ones out

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of the ladystuck exchange! thanks so much to @mikamikanat (tumblr) for the awesome prompt and thanks to the ladystuck organizers for setting up the exchange!!

It feels like she’s been walking for hours. Time is damp, fuzzy, like the bottom of an important witness to murder most foul, and space echoes around her as it splinters, splinters, splinters on out into oblivion. Terezi wants to hate it, but all she can bring herself to do is walk. 

Well, that and hope against hope that John is actually working things out. She doesn’t doubt her own plan, just his ability to follow it, but really, even that hope feels distant. The feeling of the doomed timeline hangs heavy on her still chalk-dusted shoulders, a perfect pairing for the weight she’s been carrying since she threw that fucking coin into the air. 

And, alright, okay, maybe the despondency she’s feeling has less to do with the crumbling void around her and the failed timeline and more to do with the fact that she still hasn’t been able to live (ha, isn’t that ironic now) with the choice she made sweeps ago. Regret’s useless, sure, and the only other way it could have gone is the way things are going now, hopefully, but … the cloying scent of Vriska’s blood when Terezi stabbed her still lingers, sometimes,

It lingers here, now, almost. Scent itself is weird here, since keeping her eyes from working is a constant mental task, but through the overwhelming nothingness of space, broken up only by the sour cracks in the darkness, is the faint scent of an achingly familiar blue.

Terezi wants to shrug it off. She’s desperate, she’s making it up, it’s the smell of the chalk or Egbert trying to reach her, somehow, there’s no way that it’s a Vriska, it can’t be. But the scent gets stronger. It’s.. there’s something strange about it, like it’s muted or more metallic, but Terezi knows that scent like she knows the wind through the trees by her old hive, and she knows, suddenly and without a doubt, that a Vriska is here. 

She wants to say something, but her voice isn’t there when she reaches for it. Of course, though, she’s never been the chatty one here, not really. 

“...Terezi?”

Terezi stops. Everything stops - except for the sound of Vriska’s footsteps, soft and uncharacteristically arrhythmic against the undefinable floor of space. Her bright blue scent gets brighter, louder, sharper, more and more and more until she’s right there. Right in front of Terezi. Her mouth is as wide open as her eyes, and there’s a sound like she starts to speak before realizing that she has no idea what she’s going to say. 

“Vriska,” Terezi says. It’s not a question, not a greeting, just… fact. Vriska is standing here.

“Well, (Vriska),” (Vriska) corrects. “I’m not the real one, she’s still alive out there, I guess. I’m-”

“The one I killed,” Terezi finishes.

“Yeah,” (Vriska) says, but she doesn’t sound anything like Terezi expected. She doesn’t sound angry, doesn’t sound spiteful, doesn’t sound anything but somewhere between surprised and tired. 

“Are you… you got a tattoo,” Terezi says. “It smells nice.” What is she saying, what is she saying, what else is she supposed to say? 

(Vriska) smirks, tilting her head to look down at it like she’s checking it out again. “Thanks!”

“I thought you didn’t like tattoos, though.”

(Vriska) shrugs. “Yeah, well, I guess things change when you’re dead. I’m sure you’ll get that soon enough, I take it you haven’t been here very long. Want me to show you around?”

At first, Terezi thinks it’s a joke, because around seems… difficult to pinpoint, here, but (Vriska) is quiet like she’s waiting for an answer. “Sure?” she finally says. Space fractures above her, her… Vriska stands in front of her, and yeah, okay, there are more feelings piling up in her gut than she felt when she was drawing that outline seemingly ages ago now. “Where are we going?”

There’s a pause as (Vriska) thinks, but then she smiles again, lightning quick and just as sharp as Terezi remembers. “Do you want to get a tattoo too?”

It’s a question and it’s a dare, and well, c’mon. “Oh, hell yes,” Terezi says. She lets herself smile, then, and she wants it to be sharp but she knows it’s soft. (Vriska)’s smile softens in response. She takes Terezi’s hand, and they’re off.

Even the act of walking feels different this time around. They don’t talk, but for what it’s worth, there’s practically a troll Socratic dialogue between them. Every time their hands shift against one another, every time the spikes of (Vriska)’s bracelet poke into Terezi’s wrist, every time an explosion splinters its way through space and they both jump just enough to not want to call the other out for it. 

Eventually, they’re enveloped by a dream bubble. It’s not entirely intact, but (Vriska) waves towards a small building with a sign reading TATTOO proudly. “There’s not really any use in going here, because you can pretty much just imagine what tattoo you want and it’ll appear, but it’s kind of fun to pretend.”

That’s… strange. Not of (Vriska) to pretend, of course, but to do it uselessly, just for fun. It twists something in Terezi’s heart, something that wonders what could have been but then realizes that maybe she’s getting it right here and right now. Huh. Maybe she’s getting it right here and right now - a Vriska that’s not killing, a Vriska that smiles the way she’s smiling right now, genuine and maybe just a little cautious, a Vriska that has stopped trying to be the main character in anyone else’s story but her own. Terezi grins. “C’mon, then, we’re doing this just like it used to be,” she says.

This time, she’s the one that grabs (Vriska) by the hand and tugs her forward, into the dusty shop, and she only lets go when she flops down into an uncomfortable chair. 

(Vriska) takes the seat next to her like she’s the tattoo artist. “What are you going to get?” 

Terezi pauses. (Vriska) has an anchor, but something to symbolize her ancestor, like, say, a noose, might not be as stylistically cool, and while she loves scalemates, it’s not really a tattoo kind of love. “I think… I want a dragon on my arm,” she says. Duh. “But just the outline of it. And where’s the ink, I need to find the best scent.”

(Vriska) reaches into a drawer and pulls out a tray loaded with every possible color of ink. Terezi takes a perfunctory sniff of each and every one before deciding, as she knew she would, on a bright red. 

“That one?” (Vriska) asks. 

Terezi nods. “Yeah.”

“Alright, this might hurt, but you’re dead, so.” (Vriska) wraps her fingers around Terezi’s arm and pushes her sleeve up. “Here?”

“We’ll match, sort of,” Terezi says, and she doesn’t know if something like that is the right thing to say to someone you killed, but (Vriska) just grins.

“Scourge sisters for death,” (Vriska) says. “Ready?”

She doesn’t let Terezi finish saying “yes” before the tattoo gun she’s suddenly holding is against Terezi’s arm, buzzing and, honestly, hurting more than something in the afterlife should. There’s something horribly and wonderfully intimate about it, something about Vriska hurting her in a tangible, immediate way that feels like the past and the future all at once. Terezi exhales, uselessly, and leans her head against the back of the chair. “Why (Vriska)?” she asks. 

(Vriska)’s lip twitches, but her hand doesn’t move from where it’s steadily outlining sharp edges on Terezi’s arm. “I guess the ‘real’ Vriska didn’t think I count anymore, or something. It doesn’t really matter, I mean, I don’t think it’s a surprise that some version of me is acting like a bitch.”

“You met her?”

“Yeah, she ran into me and Meenah a little while ago, and now she and Meenah are out doing plot things or something, and I’m - here. It’s not a big deal.”

Terezi gives (Vriska) her best attempt at a sympathetic, ‘I know it’s a big deal but I know you’re not going to admit that’ smile. It’s probably not great, but it doesn’t seem like (Vriska)’s looking at her face too closely. “Well, if it’s not a big deal, why not drop it? It smells like shit.”

(Vriska) laughs, almost, like she wasn’t expecting that. “I... “

“Seriously, I’m not the main Terezi anymore, whatever that means, but I’m not going to act like that’s a thing that means anything,” Terezi insists. C’mon. She knows Vriska always subscribes to relevance and importance, but if the way the small building shakes around them is any indication, they’re past the end of the world. There’s no better time to break the rules than this.

“You know what? You’re right, fuck that bitch,” Vriska says, and the smile that crosses her face is wider than Terezi’s seen in sweeps and just this side of safe. She switches the tattoo gun off and places it back onto the table. “Okay, you’re all done.”

Terezi sniffs at her arm and lets her smile fall open just as wide. “I love it,” she says. 

“It looks good,” Vriska says. “On you. Honestly, if you’re up for it, I think a whole makeover could do you good.”

Terezi snorts. Heaven forbid they stay anywhere in the neighborhood of emotional intimacy or actual conversation. “You know what, why not?”

Vriska grabs Terezi’s hand and pulls her up from the chair, and Terezi doesn’t bother to act like the contact doesn’t make her ghost bloodpusher pick up its speed. “I think you should do your hair like mine, the braids would look really good on you.”

“That and a tongue piercing for sure,” Terezi says. She lets Vriska pull her out of the tattoo shop and into the glowing void. It’s after the end of the world; they need to talk, really talk; so much more than their interlocked fingers lies between them; the alpha timeline is pushing ahead without them, and all Terezi can bring herself to care about is the sharp, warm feeling in her chest as she follows Vriska into another ocean, another lair, another adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!


End file.
